102 Years of Building Outside: The Breslow Story

A hundred and two years is long enough that the company's founders never saw a motorized louver, a Matterport scanner, or a client join a design consultation over video call. What survived those hundred and two years isn't any single product Breslow has sold — it's the family, and the standard they've held to, project after project, regardless of what happened to be state of the art at the time. Most companies don't make it a decade; fewer still make it a century while staying in the hands of the same family the entire way.

1924: Where the Name Comes From

Breslow Design & Build takes its name from the Breslow family, who founded the company in 1924. A century later, the name has stayed the same even as the family running the business has changed. Ownership passed, in time, to the Shaw family, who have guided the company for multiple generations since and lead it today as a fourth-generation family business.

Four Generations, One Standard

Ask what's changed most in 102 years and the honest answer is almost everything, except one thing: the company has never operated any way other than family-owned, and it's never been the kind of business that sells a project and disappears afterward. That continuity is unusual in an industry where installers routinely change hands, get acquired, or exit the category altogether. A structure Breslow installs today is backed by the same family — and the same standard for standing behind the work — that's been in place across four generations.

Every generation inherited more than a name; they inherited a client list, a reputation in the communities where the work was done, and the obligation to answer for whatever the generation before them had built. That's a different incentive structure than a company that changes hands every decade or two, where each new owner is accountable only for what happens on their watch.

From Then to Outdoor Architecture

The outdoor living category Breslow operates in today — motorized louvered pergolas, engineered structural attachments, integrated drainage, radiant heating, retractable screens — didn't exist in anything like its current form for most of the company's history. Getting to where the firm stands now, as a Certified Platinum Elite Azenco Dealer and one of the top Azenco dealers in the country, took decades of building, adapting, and re-learning the category as the technology itself matured around motorized systems, structural engineering standards, and materials built to last through Northeast winters for decades rather than years. What stayed constant through that evolution was the decision to keep design, engineering, permitting, fabrication, installation, and service all in-house, rather than handing pieces of the process off to outside vendors.

What the Firm Looks Like Today

A century of history doesn't mean much if the company hasn't kept pace with what the category demands now. Today Breslow operates as a team of 25 or more, having completed more than 250 premium installations, 100% turnkey, across nine states — New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, with Florida expansion currently underway. Design consultations happen over Zoom from anywhere in that footprint, and clients who want to see materials and finishes in person can do so at our private showroom in North Jersey, open by appointment seven days a week. More than 100 combined four- and five-star reviews have come in from clients across that entire service area, which is its own kind of evidence that the standard held across four generations still holds today.

Why Heritage Matters to a Buyer

None of this is nostalgia for its own sake — it's directly relevant to anyone comparing installers for a significant structural addition. A hundred and two years of continuous operation is the clearest evidence a family business can offer that it will still exist, under the same ownership, when a homeowner needs service years after installation. It's also reflected in scale: over 250 premium installations and counting, across nine states, by a team that's grown without changing who's actually accountable for the work.

Ask your contractor: how long has your company existed under its current ownership — and will it still exist in twenty years?

Watch the 100-Year Story

We put the century into a short film rather than a paragraph of copy, because a hundred and two years is easier to feel than to summarize. It's a look at what four generations of standing behind the same name actually teaches a company about outdoor construction — namely, that a structure only reflects well on you decades from now if you built it to last that long in the first place. It's a quieter kind of milestone than a product launch, but it's the one that actually explains why the company approaches every project the way it does.

The Next Project Is Yours

Every project we've built, going back a century, started the same way this one would: a conversation. Not a sales pitch, and not a home visit before either side knows whether the fit is right — just a conversation about your property, your budget, and what you actually want to use the space for. That's how it worked in the decades before louvered roofs existed as a category, and it's how it still works today.

Read what past clients have to say in our testimonials, explore the project portfolio built across nine states over the years, or start a design consultation and become part of what the next chapter of that story looks like.